You are perfect.
Love, Alissa
The Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild is in action!
We had our first meeting for the LAMQG last night. It was so much fun! Such a wonderful group of people who love to chat about quilting as much as I do.
20 of us at our very first meeting!
Oh the fabric shopping, block making, workshop having, and quilting quilting quilting we're going to do! If you are in the LA area and haven't joined us yet, I hope that you do! We have all levels of experience represented so even if you're just getting started with quilting you are more than welcome!
I don't like measuring.
A couple of questions came up about what my process of designing my latest quilt top is. The title of this post pretty much sums it up how I work. I tend to wing it quite a bit! It started like this...
Just a few random blocks that I made with no idea about how they would all fit together. I liked them arranged this way, so I stuck with it and figured it was time to start doing some planning.
My clearly amazing photoshop skills lead me to this:
From there, I made blocks based on this arrangement, just looking at the photo as I went along. The most measuring that I did was to grab my ruler and put it up on my design wall to get a sense of the size that the block I was making should turn out. Admittedly, a couple of times I had to rip out a seam to add a bigger piece of fabric to a block that had turned out a bit small. But I'd rather do that than spend tons of time measuring and cutting specific fabric sizes. I much, much prefer to just eyeball the whole thing, while erring on the side of making each block too big. It's so much easier to trim down a block than have to add to it! I also made sure that I overlapped the blocks, allowing for seam allowances, as I arranged them on the design wall.
I spent a lot of time stepping back and staring at the design wall (if you don't have one yet, really, you need one! It will change quilting for you!) and deciding which colors to add to which block. I make my decisions as I sew, block by block. I love designing as I sew. It makes the sewing feel less like the labor portion of a creative process.
This is it, now all sewn together. I made a couple of changes from the plan, but mostly stuck to it. It measures 56" x 54". Since the goal is 80" x 88" I have plenty more to go...
From there a bit more planning was in order because the quilt does have to turn out a specific size after all...
Again, my astonishing photoshop skills where put to use. Then I printed out what I'd come up with and with a pencil and some markers (I'm so high tech!) I did some simple math and bit of color planning...
And now I'm just working away at making the rest of the blocks! Should be done in a few days...
Hope that you all have wonderful Mondays!
Fall Online Quilt Festival.
It's so tough to pick my current favorite quilt to feature in Amy's online quilt festival (such a fun idea!) but I'm going to have to go with the Red & Aqua lap quilt. I love it - who doesn't love the color combo??
I used white in both the sashing and the blocks in the quilt and I love the framing it creates for each and every fabric in the quilt.
I originally posted about the quilt here.
Be sure to click on over to see all the other quilts in the online festival!
And now for something completely different.
Ok - it's not completely different - it is "me" in that it's improv. pieced, but this is way out of my comfort zone!
And I love it! Holes to fill and It's going to be a full sized quilt so I have a long way to go but so far so good. In this photo the purple pops more than it does in person and what looks like black here is actually dark brown... I think that I'm only going to grow to like this more and more as I keep working on it. And I'm officially a purple convert! Don't think that I'll suddenly be using it tons, but I'm loving it in this quilt.
And it took about .2 seconds for me to fall in love with this Lantern Bloom fabric line.
Normally I go for more graphic stuff, but this is some pretty pretty fabric... Ok - back to it!
Fallish
Here in LA, we hardly feel fall show up. But the past few days have been so so wonderful. Sunny and cool (for LA) and it's put me in a fall mood! After making the huge hexagon quilt I wanted to make a quick and fun little project so I put together this little stroller quilt. It's small - 24" x 36".
It's actually a sample for a new class that I'm going to be teaching Pasadena at The Common Thread Studio. It's another beginners quilting class that will happen in November.
And now - back to work on the commissioned quilt! Should be able to show you the beginnings of things later this week!
The next quilt...
Some beautiful Lantern Bloom fat quarters for my next quilt!
A commission that will have no white included! I'm so excited to be pushed out of my comfort zone with this fabric and quilt. Can't wait to get started.
Today is my last day on the most recent job... Oh beloved sewing machine - we are soon to be together again!
Happy weekend to you all!
The finished hexagon quilt! Finally!!
I went back and looked, and the first photo I have of the beginnings of this quilt is from July 24th. And today is September 28th. Two months it took me to make this quilt. For me, that is a long time. Now it would be one thing if I'd done a ton of sewing otherwise, but I kinda haven't. The odd quilting bee block here or there, but otherwise? Not much sewing! Lesson I've learned? Don't start a huge quilt when you're going to be working a lot. Tackle smaller quilts and that way it's easier to get a project finished and feel that needed sense of accomplishment! But anyhow - the quilt!
It's 80" by 88" - a full sized quilt, but it's on a queen sized bed in the above photo.
Some details...
The pebble quilting, which I'll never do on a quilt this big again (it took SO long!) really works on this simple pattern. I love it. Especially after the wash and crinkle...
Love how the deer pop since I've otherwise used smaller scale prints.
I used the Wonderland polka dots for the binding.
The back - sorry for a kinda dark photo. The brown reads darker in this photo than it actually is.
It's actually more like this:
I love this quilt. I do. But it was a huge project to get it all finished. No more hexagons or pebble quilting for me for a long time. Improv piecing and stippling, here I come!
It's for sale in my shop.
Modern Quilt Guild meeting!
Hey all of you LA area readers - we're finally having the first meeting for our new Modern Quilt Guild the evening of Oct. 12th and now's the time to join us if you haven't already!
Just let me know if you're interested and I can add you to the invite list. Can't wait to meet you all!
Stocking up
Oh the fabric I have to sew with as soon as my full time quilting mania kicks into gear when I finish my current job.
I can't wait! Just a couple more weeks... The blog is gonna be mellow until then, but oh, the sewing I'm going to get done soon!
Yay!
Does this mean I'm finally for real??
Has taken me forever to get around to getting cards. So glad that I finally did.
Busy weekend ahead with probably very little sewing time... But only two weeks left on my job before I'm back to the full time sewing. I can't wait! Then I'll actually blog about, you know, sewing!
Hope that you all have wonderful, wonderful weekends!
Westside classes!
Hey LA people! Are you on the west side of town? I'm also teaching classes in Santa Monica at the Urban Craft Center! If you haven't been there before, it's a great space! I'm teaching the basic "how to quilt" class over a couple of weekends this month (9/19 & 9/26) and next (10/18 & 10/25), but I'm also really excited about the improvisational piecing class that I'm teaching there in November on the 8th & 15th!
Want to learn to "wing it" with your quilt blocks and free yourself from always working with patterns? This is the class for you! Click on over for details and maybe I'll see you there!
Just a little house
I actually got a lot of sewing done this weekend but I am not allowing myself to show you another photo of the hexagons until it's photos of the completed quilt. I finally finished the quilting and have the binding to go! So for today, just a little house!
And yes. That is a dog in a teacup in the window.
It's for John the host of Sew Connected 2 and what a great quilt this idea is going to lead to!
Class at Home Ec.
Did you guys see? Home Ec. in its very own beautiful store front location is now open!
I'm teaching a fun patchwork pillow class there later this month.
Would love to see you there! Tell your friends!
P.S. For you fabric nuts, have you seen the vintage sheet fat quarter packs Jenny sells?? So great...
What I did over my long weekend.
- Enjoyed my new and improved design wall.
Yes, I have finally moved on from the tri-colored random bits of felt! If you don't have one of these, I can't recommend it enough. I use a piece of batting thumb tacked to the wall. Simple and transformative for your design process... At least for me it was.
- Wished I had a friend having a baby boy so that I could use these fabrics for a quilt.
Maybe I'll make one even though I don't. I'm liking these primary colors right now.
- And of course, I worked on quilting The Beast.
I'm never pebble quilting a queen sized quilt again. Never. Ever. Again. I'm sure the pay off will be great but good god it's taking freakin' FOREVER! One more session that's a couple of hours long and I should be done though. I'll be happy to have this quilt behind me.
Wishing you all a great short work week!
Long weekend!
I'm going to sew as much as I can during it!
Finished my blocks (couple days late!) for August of 12 Squared. They are making me want to make a whole quilt in this style. Bees are such great ways to try out new and different things on a couple of blocks!
A Ning group was started for the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild. Drop me an note with your email address if you want an invite to join and you haven't gotten one yet!
Hope you all have great holiday weekends!!
Pebble Quilting Demo
A couple of people have asked for a tutorial on the pebble quilting I've done.
There is somuchinfo out there about free motion quilting that I'm not going to cover the basics again, but along with those other links, I have a post here about them.
I figured it would just be easiest if I posted a little video of me doing the quilting. Check it out!
I hope that having a visual example is helpful! I go around each "pebble" two full times and then move onto the next pebble. Sometimes I start a third time around in order to head off into the direction I'd like. At first I thought it looked a bit sloppy, but the big picture is the key with this quilting - not each individual pebble. No one will notice if a pebble or two aren't just right.
One thing to keep in mind is to keep the size of your pebbles basically the same. Over time they can gradually grow or shrink and you want to avoid that. Unless you choose to intentionally mix it up with the pebble sizes.
Also, wind all the bobbins you can before you get started. You're seriously going to be going through some thread!
Let me know if you have questions!
A huge improvement.
Had a great sewing weekend. Also got my sewing room reorganized. It had gotten a bit out of hand... My fabric stash had... erm... out grown it's storage...
Yes. I hang my head in messy stash shame.
But NOW...!
There's even room to grow! Had to lose a small table to fit the new book shelves in, but it's definitely worth it. And after I did all of that... I sewed!
Dots!
Why am I suddenly so obsessed??
Does this happen to everyone?
Flea Market Fancy - The Return?
It could happen! If we all unite and make our quilting voices heard as one! Please do click over and add your name to the list!
Could you imagine the fabric buying frenzy that would happen if they re-released the line?? I know that I'd certainly buy up tons!!!